Chapter 2: Change of scene

The mask started to slip. At some point I stopped being able to push through pain and tiredness. Once I found myself half way through a triathlon and I just ground to a halt. I started getting pins and needles in my entire body at night. Waking up with all-over numbness and tingling, I had to worm myself out of bed and thud onto the floor and writhe around to make the feeling come back.

The conflict between who I really was and who I thought I was supposed to be raged on. The real me felt so small. She was unloved and unseen, cowering in the shadows. Meanwhile the version of me that I projected to the world would confidently blurt out opinions or make a callous joke, regardless of the consequences. I once joked to a wonderful friend over drinks after work “You've got a face for radio!” The comment clearly cut deep, and I had this inner conflict, simultaneously feeling painfully guilty, but also maintaining this blasé façade that held nothing but contempt for weakness. I hated that version of me, but I didn’t know how to survive without it.

I had a few ways of appeasing my inner self too, and one of the things I did was volunteer at the local cemetery. I had always loved being outdoors, being part of a team and doing some manual work, it was relieving. The group was an interesting mix of people, all of whom had a story and I liked their company and learning from them. I particularly got along with the leader of the group, who knew a lot about plants and was a green wood worker. His patience and artistry inspired me. He took a shine to me and called me Tigger because I was so full of energy. He would give me wheelbarrow rides and relished bouncing around in my company, appeasing his own inner child. Then one day I went to pick up a shovel and just slumped down on the ground completely wiped out, emotionless and exhausted. I didn’t even feel like a person any more. I was a hollow shell, a sorry bag of bones in a heap with no bounces left in me.

After that day, my energy was just gone. My legs were heavy, my brain was foggy, I was sluggish and poorly coordinated. Looking back it seems so obvious that this was the onset of autoimmunity, but I had no idea at the time. And I knew that I had been abusing myself with an unsustainable lifestyle so it never even occurred to me to go to the doctor with my strange symptoms. I knew I needed to rest. But I had never known how to rest. Rest equated to failure. Can't stop, won't stop. So I carried on like I always had, coming up with new things to do and new places to go.

Clearly I needed a change of scene. So I took 6 months of unpaid leave and went to Canada to cycle coast-to-coast and do some exploring. What else would you do if you were chronically fatigued? Going on my own, though, at least I could take things at my own pace, so I didn’t really notice that I was still in a slump. I ate pancakes and eggs for breakfast, drank milkshakes, and pedalled my way across the continent.

Being outdoors, going at my own pace, the conflict between my inner and outer selves was less dramatic and I could tolerate life. I was able to reflect and express myself a little more naturally and ease up my self-aggrandizing and egocentricity. The symptoms that came with maintaining a double life started to lessen.

But after that experience of cultivating a small margin of inner peace, I landed back in London, back in my old job, back in my old flat, and I started to unravel. I cried and cried, grieving the loss of my freedom, feeling so lost and sad and alone. I was trapped in the spaces where I felt like I had to be different in order to be acceptable. But I couldn't keep up the façade any more, it cost energy that I no longer had.

My boyfriend at the time tried to help me but he was out of his depth when I was in the depths of my misery. I needed to leave London, so I invited him to leave with me and he accepted. We both took our bikes around Europe, riding between rewilding projects, volunteering there and writing about our experience. I was starting to rewild my soul, starting to dip my toe into the waters where I wanted to live.

But I was too late. I was already so exhausted. And now appeasing my inner self with time in nature and interesting projects wasn't enough to bring me back to life. I felt out of my depth, out of place everywhere and too far removed from reaching the life that I really wanted. It all felt too hard and I was starting to shut down. Keeping up with my boyfriend on the bike was too difficult and we argued continually. I was finally doing what I thought would make me happy but I wasn't happy. I felt like a failure.

Contact

anna@autoimmunerecoveryproject.com

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